The Sky Scrapers look like Gravestones from out here
by CrispyKid
Summary: Neither of them really has anything to lose.
1. Chapter 1

It was the kind of darkness that could make you forget who you are. The kind that made you want lie down, right there on the warm pavement, and be consumed by the night. And it was so quiet she felt like she would never be able to speak again. The humidity was stifling. She gripped her knife and kneeled behind the dumpster. It smelled like mold and soda and vomit. The heat defiantly wasn't helping.

It wasn't that late, maybe five or six, and sky was still illuminated and overcast. But in the alley, it always looked like midnight. Her breathing was quite normal, and she was eerily at ease. In fact, the sheer fact that she was so damn calm was the only thing bothering her. She almost laughed because it was almost funny. except that it really wasn't.

And there he was, staggering down the alley in all his drunken glory. Untrimmed greasy hair and pseudo-cheshire cat grin, her father some how managed to maneuver himself down the alley.

And then, he was so close. Closer. Space contorted, time exploded. And then-

She threw herself from behind the dumpster with enough force to tackle her father. And stab him in the neck. He wheezed, unable to process what was going on. He gasped again and tried to punch her but missed and then his eyes glazed and he was dead and there was so much blood and he was still grinning and-

it was done. Six seconds. she counted. of course she did.

She withdrew the knife and whipped it on her shirt, which she then removed in favor of a cleaner one. She stuffed the evidence in her back pack. And then she just stood there. Glanced at the sky. It really was nice day, if slightly humid. She then assesses her work. Overall, relatively neat for a stabbing. Quick and concise. Excellent.

And then she bolted.

and it felt so good.

it was actually kind of scary how good it felt.

It was really quite convenient. She lived in an industrial town, which meant the economy was failing, It also meant that there was no shortage of abandoned factories so plastered in graffiti that she couldn't tell what their original color had been. She would occasionally spend the night in one when the situation at home could potentially be lethal.

Really, she figures anyone hanging out in that alley is practically begging to be murdered.

She found a small warehouse with no broken windows or obvious infestations and decided to spend the night. She wasn't to worried about the police, although they would show up eventually. She knew there were to many gangs running around for her to even be considered for murder. The probably wouldn't even look into it that much. This was the kind of town that hurt to look at to closely. Some things were better left alone.

She had a candy bar, which she doesn't do very often. She's painfully skinny. Life just doesn't time to eat.

After, she attempts to brush her hair, but it's matted from all the blood. She ties it back and figures no one will notice. Every one's either dead or asleep around here anyways. Besides, it's not exactly like she plans to hang around. She's considered the fact that people might notice that she disappeared the night her father was stabbed.

Oh, and this isn't the first time she's stabbed someone either.

As she lies in her sleeping bag, she glances through the hole in the ceiling. The sky is a melancholy shade of purple, and for a minute, the world almost looks beautiful. She hopes it rains tonight, despite the hole. It would wash away most of the blood and any stray DNA. Not that they would check for it, but whatever.

Sometimes, she wonders exactly what's wrong with her. The first time she stabbed someone, she was ten. It had scared her then. Not the actual act, she was just worried about the consequences. What if someone found out? What if she would feel guilty after? Would she be able to live with that? Why was she even doing it in the first place? She honestly was confused. She just felt _compelled _to do it. The kid hadn't even done anything to her, hadn't even looked at her, didn't even know her. So when she actually did it, it just felt so right. That as what scared her the most. It was thrilling, it was apocalyptic. Of course no one suspected her. she was meticulous. Mask, gloves, towel, sanitary wipes. She even spray painted a gang symbol above the body. Another day, another murder. they'd seen it all before.

Anyways, she figures maybe she's a sociopath or something. It seems pretty accurate, considering she doesn't feel remorse. She likes this diagnosis. It allows her function at a higher level than normal mentally, because she's not always _feeling _something, so she can rationalize.

Maybe her soul has cancer.

She doesn't know who she is, but that's ok because she doesn't really need to. she just needs to know how to be someone when necessary.

She hitch hikes to somewhere deep in the south where it's _always _humid but she doesn't mind. She stays in hostels and statehouses and lies about her age. Occasionally, she'll stay in an old factory so she can see the sky and pretend that that world is beautiful.

most people spend their lives trying to figure out who they are or soul searching or whatever. She just wants to loose herself in the ocean of humanity. But she can't. Can't blend in. Because most of them don't kill people or sleep in warehouses. Maybe she isn't even human. She defiantly doesn't have much in the way of humanity. Whatever, it doesn't really matter. Entertaining these thoughts makes her really exhausted. She figures "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

She's also become quite proficient in the art of pick-pocketing. Charming her victim into oblivion and then invading their personal space, never breaking eye contact as her hand flicks into their purse, chatting away about politics or the weather how amazing it is that they managed to get a rover onto Mars.

Life wasn't exactly optimal, but it was better than before. Sometimes she went two or three days with out eating. She was limited to stealing microwaveable meals from convenience stores or money to eat at a fast food place. Yeah, she could go to a soup kitchen. But that's just not how she rolls.


	2. Chapter 2

When he first sees her, he thinks she's dead. She's gaunt; cheeks hollowed and bones protruding. Her long, dark hair is tangled and matted. Her skin is grey and her eye make-up is smeared all over her face. She looks like one of pictures schools show kids to warn them about drugs. And she's so _young_

Despite this, however, he has to admit that she's pretty, potentially beautiful if not for the above contradictions.

She's sitting on the curb outside a convenience store, smoking and eating an ice-cream bar. It's at least eighty-five degrees out and it's so humid you could probably swim through the air, but she's wearing a black hoodie. She's looking at the people go by, but he gets the eerie feeling that she's not really seeing anything. Her eyes are totally vacant, like she's trapped in her mind.

And it's really crazy, because all of a sudden he's walking up to her.

He's striding, like she's some long lost relative he's reuniting with. Except that she's a total stranger. His shaggy hair is plastered to his face and he's covered in sweat and dirt and blood and probably some soda and the police are looking for him and they could be here and all those people that he-

and-

and-

…but hey, what does he have to loose?

Now he's standing in front of her, his shadow draped over her, bur she's still _not there_

"Hey"

"oh, hi" she doesn't move. here eyes don't move.

"this is gonna sound really crazy"

her cigarette is burnt down to her fingers but she doesn't seem to notice. "try me"

"I killed someone. they're looking for me. I'm going across the country."

he recited blandly. He attempted eye contact but even looking directly into her eyes was like staring at a wall.

"want to come?"

"I don't really suppose I have anything to loose" She shrugged and shakily got to her feet. It was true, she figured. She has nothing to do but live. There are people spend their lives talking about their lives. She just lives hers. She does realize the blunt stupidity in her decision, running away with a boy who had apparently murdered someone, but the fact of the matter was that she slept curled beside dumpsters or in the corners of garages. She didn't even have home to run away from in the first place, and the only people she knew around here were strangers anyway, no matter how much she got to know them.

"I'm Cato, by the way" Cato. Interesting name, she thinks.

"Clove, pleasure to make your acquaintance" she smirks, but it doesn't touch her eyes. It never touches her eyes

And just like that they were walking through the city, covered in dirt and blood. Fortunately, in the area they were in, half the population was covered in dirt and blood, so no one gave them so much as a second glance.

They decide to head west in an old car Cato manages to hotwire in the parking lot of a failing used car dealership. It's dented and rusting and one of the rear windows is cracked but they're not complaining and besides it gets good mileage. They try to stick to back roads and stay away from the highway as much as possible because that's were the police will look for them. It's a long trip, especially since they're staying clear of the highway, but Clove insists that they don't stop at night because the motel receptionist might recognize them or something.

They're not taking any chances.

So they drive in shifts, usually four or so hours, but sometimes Cato has to do the entire night because Clove is having an episode.

"Clove"

"who are you?" she looks totally lost, confused. Her hands are shaking, but she's still calm. This is the question that always gets him though, because it's like any remnant of what makes Clove _Clove _is totally gone and she's always a stranger no matter how much he gets to know her and her reality is so fragile.

"uh… don't you remember me?..., you know… Cato?"

"no." She states blandly. What really gets him is that he knows that the real Clove is there, desperately swimming through this fog of confusion and anger and what later becomes violence, and that she's screaming and drowning in her own mind.

He racks his brain for a response that won't trigger violence.

"Um, ok, that's ok… uh, are you hungry? We can stop and get something to eat...,

pizza-"

"I'm not hungry", Clove states flatly. She starts clawing the skin on her leg, like, really hard. Now he pulls over.

"Your leg is bleeding"

"I know"

"You should stop doing that"

"it doesn't hurt"

He knows better than to grab her hand "stop it"

And then, she punches him, hard. He can feel his eye swelling up, even feel blood. And it really hurts.

"please don't tell me what to do" she drones. Her eyes empty as ever.

And he punches back, because it's what he knows how to do, the only thing he can do because she has no problem finishing him off in times like this. The only way to stop her is to make it impossible for her to continue. So he gives her a black eye, and a split lip, breaks her finger. Nothing big, but the pain finally gets to her and she jut sits there, a few napkins wrapped around her finger. He's got scratches on his arms and face.

This happens once or twice a week. Sometimes he has to tie her down, but even that yields injuries. It usually only lasts for about five minutes, and then she falls asleep and wakes up normal or just stares at nothing, or something only she can see. She never apologizes and neither does he, because they both know it's not really Clove.

**R&R? critiques? **


	3. Chapter 3

Behind them, the highway roared. The insects shrieked in the muted static of the night. The car was parked in one of the corner spaces at a rest stop, where the pavement ended and the forest began. They were sitting on the roof of the car, hair rustling in the breeze. Cato needs a hair cut. His dirty blonde hair falls almost to his shoulders.

Clove's black hair takes on a sort of purple glow in the ebbing light.

He can thinks he can almost see her soul flaking away in the breeze.

There is some sort of crescendo building up… he can feel it. Or maybe he's crazy, which is highly likely. Either way, the night is festering…The crickets shrieking their death song…

Then, she slides off the roof of the car and runs into the forest

He just stares after her.

…two seconds later he wonders if it actually happened

wonders if she was even there in the first place.

Because there's this thing with her… like her presence is somehow diluted. Even when she's trying to kill him because something only she can hear is telling her she has to, or when his fist is connecting with her, she's empty. She's on the other side of reality. Even when she's right there, next to him, he has no idea where she is. Sometimes he keeps punching her because he thinks that if he stops, she'll fade away.

yeah, that makes no sense. But he's weird that way.

He won't chase her. there's no point.

So instead, he falls asleep in the back seat. This thing will work itself out.

She barreled through the forest until her heart felt like it was going burst through her ribs. She faltered, tripping on a root or a rock or something and falling into a small stream where she then proceeded to vomit her brains out.

oh, fantastic.

now, she attempts to get up, but she can't really figure out which way is up, and her brain doesn't seem to be able to figure out how to use her limbs either. She can't even her legs. She opens her eyes but can see anything. She doesn't know if that's because it's night or because she went blind.

and then-

"clove"

her sprawled body jolts at her name, sending another wave of dizziness crashing into her.

But she knows this voice. It's coming from her own mind.

"clove" it repeats

"where are we clove?" it sounds genuinely confused

she just lies there, clothes soaking through, head spinning, barely breathing. Being swallowed by the night.

"clove? clove! CLOVE!" it shrieks "CLOVE!"

and the first wave of sound hits her. It slams into her mind, the shock throbbing through her. Though she's already on the ground, she can feel herself being knocked to her feet. The voice is screaming bloody murder.

and then the light. It's blaring, it's so bright, it's inside her eyes, oh my god-

she can feel her pupils contorting as her brain erupts

oh god it's so loud-

she can see the second wave of sound barreling towards her, rippling like the pavement on a hot day-

she covers her head with her hands in a feeble attempt to protect herself-

and-

and-

and-

no-

It hits her. She feels time explode. She can feel the shock being absorbed by her bones, feel the deafening roar echoing inside her, feel her self being electrocuted. She is the electricity-

raking through her body, weaving through her organs…

She can hear herself shrieking…

And the pain. it's like her soul combusted. And it's a weird sensation because she can feel it, a searing, feral pain, but not in her body. Not in her brain, Somewhere deep in her mind…

And-

she passes out.

he wakes up to pouring rain, which means that the seat is ruined because he was stupid and left the window slightly open. He waits a few minutes for the rain to let up but it doesn't and he desperately has to use to bathroom so he gets out anyways

And almost steps on her.

She's lying on the pavement, shaking uncontrollably and obviously soaking wet. She's so pale she's practically transparent and plastered with vomit ad dirt and she has blood tricking from her mouth. Pathetic.

He steps over her to get to the bathroom.

When he returns, of course she's still there. He sighs.

"get up"

of course she doesn't get up. She probably doesn't even know he's there

he kicks her lightly

"c'mon, just get up"

no such luck.

"get the fuck up already!" he kicks her, and she rolls over. He ends up picking her up and placing her in the back seat. she's to light. Only dead people are that light.

after about eight hours, she's recovered enough to walk into a pharmacy and steal some cough syrup. She thinks it's almost to easy, like, they trust people way too much. She drinks about a third of the bottle without reading the instructions. Wipes her mouth with her filthy sleeve.

"That…was…refreshing…" she manages groggily , her head lolling back against the seat. she finds a pen on the floor. There's a long silence where he thinks she might have fallen asleep, but he tilts the mirror and finds her staring out the window

More silence.

They were driving through a small suburb, the city behind them.

"…ya know…" her voice has a weird sound to it, like she hadn't talked in years. "The skyscrapers kinda look like gravestones from out here…" she said vaguely.

um, ok…

Cato dismisses this as some random drug induced statement, which are not entirely uncommon from Clove. But there's something about the way she said it that made him crane his neck around and almost get hit by a pissed off driver to see for himself.

And she was actually kinda right, he realized. All tall and grey and foreboding, like there was some mass grave hidden in plain sight. oh.

But still, she was tripping pretty hard.

They end up staying in a sleazy motel. It's been mouths since they ran. By now, they've probably been forgotten, their stories buried by those of the latest wars and murders. Besides, they'll risk it for a shower and a bed.

If the woman at the front desk recognizes them, she does an awfully good job of hiding it.

They go to their room and take the first showers they've had in weeks, then watch part of some shitty movie and fall asleep in the same bed, and for once it seems like everything is ok.

**R&R please? :)**


	4. Chapter 4

He wakes up at around 2 am and doesn't feel her next to him. The bathroom light is off. He groans and figures she went off to a 24 hour pharmacy for some pills or something. He knows he's probably a terrible person, letting go off and fuck herself up, especially when she's totally mentally unstable, but there's really no point in controlling her. There are just some people who can't be saved, because they just don't care anymore.

And Cato has too many of his own issues.

But he is there when she really needs him. When she overdoses or when she throws up because she ate an apple because she was starving and hadn't eaten the day before.

And he knows how she gets the money for her little pharmacy trips because sometimes she disappears and when she comes back her hair is messed up and she walks funny and her eye liner is running down her face.

He gets out of bed and walks into the bathroom for some water.

And he almost kills himself, slipping on the floor. Which is wet. And the water isn't running. He stumbles over to the light switch, still half asleep.

The light flickers...

_oh, god, no..._

He gags. "c-clove..."

_no, no, no..._

but he doesn't scream. He doesn't lose it. He doesn't run. He's on the other side of the scene now and it feels weird, almost thrilling in a sick sense. He's the one discovering the body. An it's worse than leaving it.

She's slumped against the bathtub, head rolled back, blood cascading out of a deep gash on her forearm. A razor rests in her slack other hand. She's lost _so much blood_...

Her skin is weird and grey, her forehead had little droplets of sweat on it

He wipes his feet on a towel. He doesn't even try to stop the blood flow.

He picks up the hotel phone, dials 911

States his emergency.

Then, he takes his backpack, and slips out the window and into the night

Clove can tell where she is before she opens her eyes. The antiseptic smell is so strong she swears she can get high off it. Which she can't, but whatever. She can't feel her arm, but she's aware of it's presence. The lights are florescent and way to bright, she tries to bring her other hand to shield her eyes, but she forgets how exactly to do that, so she'll just have to deal. She can tell it's night, even though she's facing away from the window. _why am I am alive? _the thought pierces through her subconsciousness like a bullet

She's not suppose to be here. Why can't life just leave her alone?

At least she gets morphine.

A nurse walking by the door way notices she's awake and comes to check on her

"How are you feeling, dear?"

"how long have I been here?"

"about two days. you have a pretty nasty gash in your arm there. You lost so much blood you had to have two infusions." She smiles all perky and checks some machine that's depositing clear fluid into Clove's arm.

"You got twenty stitches" she said as if Clove gave a damn.

"oh"

"Are you thirsty?"

"no"

"hungry?"

never. "no"

"Ok then dear. I send the doctor in to talk things over with you"

"uh, thanks" she exited briskly.

The doctor is a middle-aged guy with a normal hair cut and normal glasses.

"Dr. Kingsley" He nods to her "And you are?"

"Clove"

"Pleased to meet you Clove" he says indifferently. flipping through a folder "How are you feeling today?"

_dead._

"fine. When can I leave?" she inquires dully.

He sighs and shifts in his chair "Look, Clove. You have a five-inch gash in your arm. If you had gotten that from, say a cooking accident, you could go home within an hour of arrival . But when the paramedics found you, you were bleeding to death in a motel bathroom, with a razor in your hand. You attempted suicide, and therefore it is state law that we have to admit you to our mental ward. Also, it appears you have no parents or guardians, so that's a whole other legal issue which we're not even going to deal with right now." He says it in a business like tone, like he's selling her insurance or some shit.

"Not to mention you're in a pretty advanced stage of an eating disorder, which you'll also need treatment for, or you risk kidney failure. I'll need your full name to search your medical records, if you have any"

_my full name? yeah right. good luck finding my records.  
_

"Clove Murphy"

"Ok, Clove" he sands and adjusts his glasses, even through they were perfectly in place. "Take care. You'll be moved to the psychology ward tomorrow night"

oh, great. She has to get out of here. Now.

She tries to move her leg. Nothing. She concentrates. Manages to wiggle her toes. Tries to roll her ankle. No such luck

Suddenly, a machine beeps and a wave a morphine hits her, warming her blood and melting her senses together. Suddenly, all her thoughts are weigh a million pounds and holding them is making her really tiered...

At 6 or so, a nurse brings her a black shirt and sweat pants that are too loose and without drawstrings. The nurse practically has to dress her, and somewhere in the back of her mind, clove knows that this is pathetic, but the thought barely penetrates the lazy fog of sedatives in her brain. The nurse tries to help her walk, but clove falls over and gets a bloody nose and they end up just getting a wheelchair.

The psych ward is bland. The walls are white, the floors are less white, and the windows have bars over them. There's a sign that says "Welcome!" in big goofy letters, but it's hard not to take it as a joke. It makes her giggle hysterically. A few kids loitering around the halls turn to stare at her, or in her general direction. They move slowly, shuffling through the halls. Time as a whole seems to slow down here. The air is stale and thick with sleep.

They wheel her to the front desk where the nurse fills out some paper work and fastens a plastic bracelet with her name and a serial number to her wrist. Then she gets an injection. Normally, the nurse would have at least one broken bone by now and Clove would be frantically searching for the nearest exit. But she just watches with weary eyes, slumped in her wheelchair, defeated.

Her room contains a cot, complete with yellowing but clean sheets and a thin pillow. there is a barred window on the far wall, and dark green carpeting. A dresser in the corner is the only other piece of furniture. A door leads to a bathroom with a toilet, sink, and mirror. There's a locker-room for showers, the nurse explains. No shaving, no makeup. hairbrush, toothbrush and toothpaste and stay in the locker room, and did she have any questions?

She didn't, so the nurse finally left her alone. she didn't even have a hairbrush or toothpaste. At least she gets her own room, she thinks.

An hour later, another nurse comes in a drags her to dinner. She has two options; eat here or get a feeding tube.

grudgingly, she eats. Even if she wanted to eat, the food sucks. but the nurse is watching her so she doesn't exactly have a choice.

After, they lock her out of her room for three hours. She falls asleep in a corner in the hallway

**A/N: sorry if that one was a little boring :( cato/clove stuff in the next one xx  
**


	5. Chapter 5

A week passes. Clove has three episodes. During the first one, she almost strangles one of the other patients to death before the nurses intervene. She spends a total of eighteen hours in solitary confinement, by the time she gets a diagnosis, which isn't really that much of a diagnosis, she's so sedated she can barely talk. again. Her hair is limp and greasy. Her eyes are watery and dead as ever.

Her diagnosis is psychosis NOS (not otherwise specified). The doctors can't really give her an official diagnosis until she's eighteen, something brain development. The doctors assure her that they're working on a personalized cocktail of pills for her and soon she should be feeling "back to her old self", that's the phrase they used. She has no idea who that is. She doesn't expect that to happen anytime soon though, so for now she just drifts in limbo between their world and hers.

She doesn't really interact with the other kids there, but she watches them. Some of them are so close to normal that they actually socialize. They speak and attend group therapy and arts and crafts hour and movie night. Then there are the ones who beat other kids when the nurses aren't around. The kids who scream at night. The one's who start bawling when you ask them to move over on the couch. Then there are the kids like clove. The ones who you don't notice at first glance, the ones who silently disintegrate in the corner, beyond reach of reality.

One night when she's walking back from the bathroom and a boy shoves her against the wall and kisses her hard. She struggles, but one hand pins hers to the wall above her head. The other one slides up her shirt and fingers her ribs. It's funny, the nurses think they have such an iron grip on this place, that they have everything in check. They're so careful. no hair pins, no un-supervised teeth brushing. But then, stuff like this happens. He finally releases her and she slumps to the floor. He walks to the corner, hesitates, and turns around "thanks." then "I'm sorry"

The next morning, they find him dead in his room. Clove asks a girl what happened and she said he had been hiding his pills under his tongue and saving them in his room. Apparently, he took them all last night.

/

Cato hates hospitals. Especially the psych ward. Blood, fine. guts, fine. Anything but the psych ward.

And he doesn't even know why he's here in the first place.

Well, ok. he does. He remembers a little bit. he remembers the first girl, how they went back to her place, hooked up. The horrified expression on her face when he pulled out the knife, the pain etched into her face as he de-animated her. The clammy giddiness that sets his mind on fire. Them he remembers wanting to stop. Convincing himself that he'd had enough. But he was falling. He tripped and now there was nothing he could do about it. He was gonna hit the ground at some point right?

So he didn't stop at one.

He's arrested after the second time, when he was too plastered to notice the person frantically screaming into phone behind him. The blaring sirens. Handcuffs. His face connecting with the pavement.

He spent a week in prison, and was appointed a lawyer who was able to convince the court that he was mentally ill. No one was about to pay to send him to some treatment center. And thus, the psych ward.

He barely sees the other kids. they mostly keep him in solitary confinement. He gets his meals drive thru style, except that there's no person sticking their head in and asking what he wants, only the person sticking their hand in to give him his meal.

He made such a racket punching holes in the wall the first night that they sedated him so heavily he was out for three days. Now they keep him pretty drugged, but he doesn't mind. They bring him low, below reality, below hell. Where it's dark and heavy and sleepy. At least he feels something.

/

She takes twelve pills a day. six in the morning and six at night. She slides them in-between her cheek and gum in the back of her mouth when they make her stick out her tongue.

/

It's been a month when the finally decide to let him out of his little cell. He stumbles into the common room, the florescent light assaulting his eyes and almost making him fall over. He's so sluggish and out of it that they don't think anything could happen. He finds a chair at an empty table and falls asleep.

When he wakes up, she's sitting across from him, staring out the window.

Her hair is greasy and disheveled, her bangs covering half of her face. Her eyes are bloodshot and he can count her bones. Her arm is bruised.

"you look like shit" he observes

It takes her a minute to notice him. "look who's talkin'" she slurs. It's a lame response, but she's right. His hair is down to his shoulders, he's got a black eye from ramming his head against his cot.

"save your meds" she says before walking away.

/

At 3 am, he shows up in her room. He flicks on the lights. She's sitting on her bed with her knees drawn into her chest, staring. He hands her the pills, which she places under a section of carpet she uprooted.

The he throws her against the bed, kisses her hard. It's feverish and amazing and kind of gross but they don't care. Clove looses her shirt somewhere in the process as Cato runs his hands over her ribs, her chest, grips her neck with a bruising force. Her pelvic bones are digging into his stomach and she smells like sweat and stale flesh but he doesn't care, He probably smells the same. At one point pins her arms above her head but her wrists a sweaty and she frees her self easily. She digs her nails into his back, all the while eating his face off. She draws blood smears it over his back, then his face. Their bodies are slick and they writhe on the bed, immortal in the heat of their moment.

And eventually they break apart, and just lie there, pressed against each other. It's pitch black and silent, but Cato can tell she's crying.

They stay like that until Cato notices that they sky is a shade lighter and disentangles himself to wash his own blood off of his face in Clove's sink. He gets dressed and turns toward the door when she grabs his shirt

"tomorrow night, same time. bring a sharp object. we're going shopping"

Cato smirks from between shadows.

**a/n: hope you guys liked it & thanks for the awesome reviews xx  
**


	6. Chapter 6

The next day, he shows up at arts and crafts hour. They're making bracelets. He throws a few beads in a string, chats with a few of his fellow inmates, and takes a Popsicle stick on his way out.

She takes her first shower in about a week. It takes like half the bottle of shampoo to get a lather going, but when she gets out a dries off her hair is soft and smells like synthetic apples.

They reduced her sedatives like they promised now that they found a combination of meds that controlled her erratic behavior well enough. She was still a little out of it, but at least she could walk and stay awake for more than four hours. She had put on a few pounds, which she hated, but you could barely tell anyway.

/

Cato glances at the clock and slips out of bed. He double-socks his feet and throws on black sweats and a t-shirt. grabs the paper pocket that contains his pills and the popsicle stick.

He walks through the florescent bathed hall. They always keep the lights on. He approaches a corner and knows the night shift insomniac is there at the reception desk. if he craned his neck slightly he might be able to see Cato.

But he doesn't and Cato leaps out, closes the three yards and has the guy in a head lock, one hand clamped over his mouth before he could even react.

And then Cato notices something, how the arms dangle limply when they should be trying to pry his off. He backs away cautiously, still poised to attack.

But the guy is out cold.

Cato smirks and relaxes slightly, still aware that a nurse could turn the corner any minute

He's about to move on when he notices the guy's mug. It's half full and he tips it slightly

And finds a little white pill, partially disintegrated.

damn, she's good.

He continues to Clove's room, only pausing to splinter the popsicle stick and pick the lock that separates the girls' and boys' sections.

Clove is pacing in her room, already having deactivated the sound-monitoring system. Cato realizes he forgot about his and worries for a minute that they heard him scuffling around.

whatever.

They leave clove's room and head for the supply closet, which is only about a three minute trip but can take ten if one is unaware how navigate the labyrinth of the psych ward.

Clove memorized it as soon as she could think normally. She may spend an unhealthy amount of time drunk or high or tripping, but she's far from stupid.

They reach the supply closet undetected. None of the people on night duty lurk around here. They're all near the rooms, in case someone suddenly starts screaming or something. They simply have no reason to be around here.

Cato picks the lock, and just like that, they have access to all the meds in their wildest dreams.

And needles. So many needles. They grab whatever they can and stuff it down their pants. Even the needles, though they're careful about those. Clove eyes the cough syrup hungrily, and grabs a bottle. He notices and shakes his head. Not now. She sighs, but she gets it. she'll keep her wits about her tonight.

They only take as much as they need, and rearrange the remaining bottles. Nothing ever happened. Their secrets dissolve into the shadows.

Safely in Clove's room, they unload the contents or their raid. Syrup, sedatives, Tylenol, lithium, all sorts of antidepressants, antipsychotics. Clove recognizes a great deal of the ingredients, she has a general idea of what to mix. Knows what to extract from capsules, what reacts with codeine.

She's simply to smart for her own good.

Meanwhile, Cato fills the needles with what ever concoctions she shoves at him. When they're finally done, Clove hides it under the carpet and they wash the remaining evidence down the drain

After the lights go out and Cato goes to leave, then changes his mind and climbs into her bed for a few minutes and just holds her, his arms around her waist, her arms folded over her stomach.

They don't love each other. They've been through to much to love.

They're just fellow inmates, imprisoned in reality.

It's the physical contact that they crave. The heat. Because hell is a cold, cold place.

"What are we gonna do? ya know, after this? Like, where are we gonna go?" her voice was barely a whisper

"I was thinking maybe New Orleans. I could get a job, you could to, but-"

"I have issues"

"...yeah. we could just sorta fade into the whole scene there, like the music and the culture and stuff. you got anything in mind?"

"we could do anything" she says as if she just discovered her freedom, as if it finally felt real. She smiles, actually smiles. It's small and crooked, but it's a smile.

He glances at the window. It's probably around 4 am. Wake up is at 7.

"I'ma go now, try and get some sleep." He squeezes her, knows she likes that, before he untangles them. He selects his supply of ammunition and leaves.

/

The next day is totally normal. A few staff are feeling ill but it's dismissed as a stomach bug or a cold and they leave early and that's that. A few patients are moved upstairs to the main hospital to be treated for fevers. No one thinks anything of it. Everyone here is on meds with the occasional side effects, and the sanitary standards among the patients are less than desirable., despite the sterile environment.

/

Half the people on the ward don't wake up. The staff who went home don't come back.

Cato and Clove slip out in the general chaos of nurses and tears and shrieking family members.

They're not the only ones. A few other kids are wandering around the complex, wondering what the fuck just happened, marveling at their freedom, terrified of it's side effects.

A girl and a boy who Clove saw a few times and who were kept separate from each other were making out in a corner. They loved each other, she could see it in their in their eyes every time they were dragged away from each other every time they were caught trying to share a few seconds

She had stopped; Cato grabs her and pulls her across the parking lot. behind the ravenous blob of media that had assembled out front. Into the woods.

And they just run. Run from the white walls and the meds and the death. the Their feet are heavy and the leaves graze their faces and the thorns are annoying but it doesn't matter. They keep going until Clove collapses from exhaustion.

they can hear the highway.

she's panting, wheezing, tears streak her face. He can't tell if it's from running or if she's actually crying, but either way, she's ok after a minute and they just lie in the dead leaves and moss.

Clove extracts a small bottle from her pocket

"To freedom" she says, un screwing the cap and fumbling with the tin foil. Then she takes out a piece of whatever candy was at the front desk and drops it in, shakes it.

They finish the bottle.

They have no money.

no where to stay, no car.

No food.

Thug life, Cato muses. He certainly didn't choose it. It's really not that cool. Just exhausting.

/

The next day, they peel themselves off the ground.

"sometimes I wanna die. But other times, I just wanna sleep, like, forever" clove mumbles.

Cato regards this as a rhetorical statement. She talks to herself more than she talks to him.

/

The forest is over-ripe and soggy with heat. They trudge through the gnats and the mosquitoes until they hear the rhythmic ebb and flow of the highway.

They catch a ride from guy who's so plastered he can barely stay in the right lane. better than nothing. Clove wonders if anyone is decent anymore.

But then again, she shouldn't be talking.

**a/n thanks for reading & remember to R&R! xx  
**


	7. Chapter 7

**Before you read this: this chapter contains drug use, rape(though not graphic) and prostitution. The effects of drug use as depicted as accurately as possible based on research. If something is incorrect please feel free to notify me xx**

The guy drops them in some run down city in the middle of a down pour. Trash is caked around the gutters and against buildings. depression looms in the air and radiates off the buildings. Homeless people line the street like broken relics and rats conspire and breed in corners. Time festered and slowly dissolved into the silent, repressed chaos of lost souls.

It was making it hard for clove to breathe.

/

Dripping with rain and sweat, they settle down in an alley. Clove hates alleys, but at least it's semi dry. Complete dryness is an impossible feat to achieve considering the humidity.

Clove's hair plastered to her face and her skin is murky and pale. Her eyes are slightly bloodshot.

But she's got a kind of alluring aura to her.

/

A few days later they find an empty basement in an apartment building. They noticed that some of the homeless had staked out in basements so obviously no one really cares. It's concrete and there's multiple leaks in the ceiling and some sort of weird fungus type thing that neither of them cares to investigate growing in the corner but whatever. It's better than the street by a long shot, and it has a lock and a sink.

They steal some blankets and clothes from one of those charity boxes and sleep on those. They sit on the street with a cardboard sign and a soup can in the day time but even the around here those who have houses and decent food don't have much spare change. They're lucky to make a few dollars.

At night they hold each other under the flickering light bulb, listening to people's TV's through the vents or just listening to them live their miserable lives. The fall asleep to the incessant dripping of the ceiling.

/

Clove's getting worse. Maybe it's the stress, maybe it's the eerie, nostalgic aura of this whole goddamn place. Either way, she spends whole days curled in a corner, mumbling to herself, gnawing her fingers until the skin is gone. sometimes, she slams her head into the wall and Cato has to tackle her and pin her down because she's so hell-bent on killing herself. Sometimes, she goes after him while he's sleeping and he wakes up to her hands around his throat. She's so frail a punch in the face could knock her out cold. He could snap her arm with his wrist. Her bones bend.

What gets him is that he can't save her. Because the thing that's destroying her is her own mind. So he keeps her drugged on cheap meds. Syrup and sleeping pills. Sometimes she's so out of it he can get her to eat.

That's probably what's keeping her alive.

/

But all this shit is getting to Cato. Taking it's toll. He's free falling through life, hitting every branch on the way down. He's trying desperately to hold Clove to reality, but he's lost grasp of it himself. So, with each day passing, he finds himself in the bar down the street with whatever money they made that day, clove safely sedated and locked the darkest corners of her mind. They don't even ask his age. With the help of a little (ok, a lot) of cheap alcohol, he's able to convince himself that everything is ok.

/

She doesn't notice he'd been gone until he returns and flicks on the dim light. Her vision is fuzzy and distorted but she can tell he's not alone. There's some discussion about money but clove can't really follow it.

"30, up front. now." Cato demands. The guy eventually consents and Cato hesitantly turns to leave "any broken bones, anything, and I'll kill you" He states before shutting the door.

Suddenly, clove feels her clothes being stripped off and stifling weight of the stranger on top of her. She goes to hit him, to punch him, anything, but she's to sluggish and he pins her arms to the ground and covers her mouth.

Cato sits outside counting and recounting the thirty dollars. Hating himself. Hating life. Briefly hating clove for being so damn submissive and not kicking the guy's ass. Which is totally stupid and unjustified, and just makes him hate himself even more.

About 20 minutes later, the guy emerges, drops the last 10 dollars on Cato's lap. "bitch gave me this"

he indicates to a shallow but long gash in his forearm and Cato feels a twinge of pride. It doesn't last. He just shrugs as the guy walks off into the night. He hesitates before he opens the door, afraid of what he'll find.

Clove is huddled in a corner, naked and shaking uncontrollably. Bruises are scattered over her arms and stomach, she has a black eye. Blood glistens from between her legs.

And that's when he gets it. She's gone. Totally gone. He was holding her to life, to reality, and then he betrayed her. And she plunged into the insane labyrinth of her mind.

He approaches her like one would approach a wounded animal. But she doesn't lash out. She can't.

He wets an old shirt in the sink, washes her face, her stomach, gets off most of the blood. She inhales sharply when he moves her arm and he knows something's broken, perhaps a rib or a wrist. He sighs. He should've killed the guy right then and there. He should have killed himself.

He carries her over to their makeshift bed. Lies her on her side, curls around her.

"I'm sorry" he murmurs, cringing at how fucking idiotic he sounds.

She doesn't speak. Her lips are swollen and blue. He can barely feel her heart beat, but he knows it's dangerously slow. Feel the death seeping through her skin, everything that made her clove chafing away.

She can't see. She can't hear. She can feel, but it's numbed, like she's experiencing it through another body. It's pain. it's all pain. She can feel herself burning, a feverish crescendo. She walks into the eye of the storm.

She stays curled on the basement floor for a month. She staggers over the sink every once in a while, only to collapse on the floor and immediately give up. Cato steals food rather easily and attempts to feed her, but is rarely successful. She just doesn't care, is to far gone to care. He wonders of any part of her is still with it, but figures it's unlikely.

This isn't supposed to happen to the people you know. This is that person who talks to himself on the street corner, that weird woman who screams when you say hi. Not clove.

sometimes, he feels like he should kill her. He fucked things up bad and the best thing he can do for her is put her out of her misery. She's dead in every sense except for literally. But he has a selfish need for her existence. Not love, he doesn't love her. there is a difference. Love is selfish, but also selfless. you give yourself up to the other person and hope for the best. Cato doesn't care about her. He cares about himself. When he cares about her, it's a direct result of his selfish infatuation with her, not a response to her needs. It's in his best interest to care for her, so he does. Simple, right?

Wrong.

Because he wants to love her, to be able to feel what she feels, experience the world through her eyes. Oh well. He'll work with what he has. That's the way he rolls. always was. Cato's spent his life dangling from the fringes of society. Staking out in the dark corners that people turn away from because if they don't see it doesn't exist right?

He's not there. He's never there, which is ok. the less time he spends here, the less he sees her like this. pathetic and insane. She's groggy and high, yet at the same time way low down, sleepy and depressed but in a comfortable way. She's above heaven and below hell. And today, she's gonna fly. she knows how it works, the hours of euphoria that culminate in lethargy and nausea. But she can always run back, tail between her legs, like the pathetic kid she is and beg for more. Another cheap thrill, another artificial moment to live for. Prosthetic emotions because she has none of her own.

She takes out the baggie with the white crystals. The spoon, the lighter. Her needle. And she jumps off the cliff.

It's like there's light radiating from inside her. Suddenly, she's connected. She's beautiful and everything will be ok. She can see inside herself, can feel her soul, can _feel. _And she feels something she's never felt before, which maybe love. Love for the world, for herself. It's a think, content feeling. She can feel her blood on fire, can feel the energy- the energy of the universe, in her veins. She feels happy. She gets up off the ground. there is no turning back.

One day He returns from the bar at some ungodly hour and she's not there. He figures maybe she was taken, but the door has a lock, and he has a key (he did eventually get the key, but it wasn't pretty). It locks from the inside.

And the door was open, wasn't it, he remembers

So either someone broke in,

or she left.

He sighs and figures he should look for her, turns to the door again. Does a double take. There's a note on the bed. He squints at it rather than bothering to pick it up, and can barely decipher her hand writing. It's spidery and half cursive.

_im ok. _it reads. Wow, Clove took time to consider the fact that he would be thinking about here. Clove was thinking about other people

_holy shit._

Clove and the girl she was working with made their way through the murky alley. Glimmer, Glamour? Didn't really care. either way, she has a body to kill for and clove has to admit, she's a little jealous. She's only a few inches taller than clove (who's a little above average) but has at least 30 pounds on clove's emaciated figure. Clove doesn't like her body, she wants to be beautiful and she knows she's not. Ironically, that's how this whole thing started, she though she wasn't beautiful. (_Are you happy now, are you pretty enough?)_ But she's powerless in the face of her disease. she hopes that will change someday, if she has a someday.

Glimmer or whatever pauses. and extracts a pair of black five inch heals.

"Here" she hands them to clove "they won't let you in barefoot. I'll give your outfit when we get there." Clove thanks her and decides to put the shoes on when they get there.

Clove rings the door bell three times before a guy opens the door and ushers them inside quickly. It smells like liquor and vomit and the music is s loud clove feels the floor vibrating. People of various degrees of intoxication are passed out, slam dancing, or just contributing to the general chaos. A guy is doing an unsupported one handed keg stand and people are cheering.

"Hello ladies, so great you could make it" his leering smile tells clove that this could potentially end in disaster.

"Fifty, up front. ten dollars for additional lap dances. no touching. You touch us, we leave. get it?" Glimmer recites confidently.

"Sure thing, ladies" he counted out fifty dollars and glimmer tucks it in her shirt. Clove can tell right then and there that no one gives a damn about the no touching rule.

"Alright, good then, we're just gonna change then be right out, kay?" she drags clove to

the bathroom. Once the door is locked, Glimmer extracts a tiny black pair of shorts and a black bikini top and hands them to clove. A neon pink set for herself.

"They should fit. I actually bought those with my own money, so hold onto them, first set is on me, you lose those, you buy your own." clove just nods and changes

"alright" she finishes changing and tries to breathe normally, because she's really fucking nervous "here goes nothing'"

They unlock the door and make their way into the living room.

Within an hour, clove had made 100$ on lap dances, and things are going relatively smoothly, save the occasional drunken feel up. Suddenly, someone snakes an arm around her waist. "how much for a little time alone?" He breathes in her ear.

_oh, shit _

This wasn't supposed to happen. They were gonna lap dance then do their routine and leave. This was not included in the package.

Yet, she knows they need the money, her and Cato. They need to buy their freedom, and it's not cheap. So she seizes the opportunity

"forty. you can pay me now"

He gropes around in his pocket and extracts 40 bucks like it breaks his neck to do so. Then he leads her into the bathroom and proceeds to fuck her right there on the sink. And he's not that nice about it. Clove just closes her eyes and watches her and Cato running in a field or swimming at the beach. It's totally cliché, but hey, even clove dreams sometimes. When he finishes, she has blood running down her leg.

Glimmer finds her as she leaves the bathroom, the guy never giving her a second glance. Then notices the blood

"hey, you ok?" She comes in and locks the door behind them.

"Yeah" she wipes gingerly between her legs, "I've had enough'a this, c'mon"

Glimmer nods and the girls make their way to the door unnoticed. Most of the guests are passed out by now.

"don't worry, it only gets easier" Glimmer says sympathetically, closing the door behind them.

_but it doesn't. it's never easy. Every time I sell my body, I sell a piece of myself. _

"Yeah, I guess it does. How much did you make?"

"about almost 200, you?"

About 140. we also have the fifty, so that's 165"

"not bad for your first party"

"Thanks" she smirks _I've finally found my talent_.

"Listen, there's another one in a few days. It's a little ways from here in rich area, place is fucking goldmine. you in?"

"yeah"

"cool. meet me in front of the little convince store a few blocks from here, you know the one I'm talking about? my boyfriend can drive us or we'll get a cab"

"ok"

They continue in silence to Clove's uh, residence, where glimmer gives her a soft smile and her 25 dollars

"'night"

"'night"

She takes out her key, opens the door

"hey" she whispers "Hi Cato, how are you? Did you get my note? I left you a note-

"yeah thanks. where were you?" The sliver of light from the door reveals Cato sprawled on the bed, propped on his elbow

"Oh I was at a party. I went with a girl named Glimmer, she was really nice-

"guest of honor, huh?" he says with a cocky smile

"you bet" she smirks, extracting her 165 dollars

"holy shit"

"yup" jesus christ she's sweating bullets.

"Hey, I can't find it" she sounds confused

"can't find what?" there wasn't much here

"I dunno, but I left it somewhere" she says briskly

nope, something was defiantly right. "umm, when the last time you had it...?"

"No idea, but hey-shit, my skin's really itchy"

"Clove, you ok?"

"Yeah, I'm awesome. It's really beautiful, ya know, the world"

a cockroach scrambles across the floor and into a crack in the wall. Clove shrieks. Clove never shrieks. And the cockroaches have never bothered her before

And then, something clicks. The unusual amount of energy, the smiling, the cockroach.

"Clove" She's pacing nervously around the room. "Clove"

"Yeah?"

"you on something?"

"nope. not at all. You have to help me find it, Cato" Her voice is panicked and desperate. she continues to move about the room, taking off her clothes, changing. Changing again. Sitting. Standing.

"c'mere a sec would ya clove?" She doesn't so he walks over to her, but she won't sit still

"Clove"

She whips around, terrified "what the fuck do you want from me!?"

She's not blinking. And he's able to catch a glimpse of her eyes and she walks by, rubbing her arms

"It's so cold in here isn't it?" It's one of the hottest nights of the year

"Yeah" Cato says. Her pupils are enormous

**a/n thanks for reading! feedback on this chapter would be awesome because I'm very skeptical about it, and will probably make a few changes in the future. xx**

** -R&R-**


	8. Chapter 8

Clove hit the bottom. And broke every bone on the way down. And then some. She can hear them in her head _ what have you done to us, clove? why clove? you stupid fucking worthless bitch, you whore..._

And then the other ones

_it makes you skinny, clove, it makes you happy, it makes you beautiful. that's what you wanted, right? to be beautiful? _

Yesterday she jumped off the cliff. She could feel the wind through her hair and the thrill of surrendering control. She was resurrected. She could get up, she could walk. Life was amplified, she could feel. In the back of her mind, she knew this would happen, could see it coming, but it was like a distant memory.

And now it punched her in the face. And here she is, on the floor, once again. Sweating and shaking, once again. She can't tell if she's burning or freezing and she can't remember ever feeing anything different than this. It won't end. This is how she'll spend the rest of her life. All she wanted was escape from her mind. Escape at any cost.

The Irony is killing her. Literally.

_where is my forever? _

She doesn't know anymore.

She just doesn't know.

And doesn't care. Whatever. It doesn't even matter.

she has one option.

_feed us clove, feed us..._

_You're hideous, I can feel you getting heavier, fat, fat, fat-  
_

Climb back up the cliff. And throw herself off again.

/

Cato got his own needle. In a city dripping in poison, it really wasn't that hard. He found her supply, knows she won't care.

He just can't take this anymore, looking out for her. She's a lost cause.

So is he, he realizes. Always has been. Never on the right side of life.

He'll just fade away...

Cato plunges the needle into his arm and lets his fix lead him deep inside himself.

/

Clove peels herself off the floor, dizzy and nauseous. It takes her a moment to gain her balance. She slips into a s shirt and jeans. Her hair is long and erratic. She takes some syrup because she feels like shit.

Stumbles down the street. It's funny here, there are sky scrapers where the rich people work, hundreds of feet above them, at their executive desks and their corporate jobs. They have husbands and wives and kids and generic suburban houses where they lead their generic suburban lives with generic happiness. And then, there are the freaks and the castoffs and the failures who sit at the bottom of the sky scrapers in the shadows so the rich corporate people can pretend they don't exist as they walk by them. They have an unspoken agreement; _do whatever you want, just do it in a place where we can't see_

clove tries to remember which house contains her cheap salvation. She knows it's on this street, but they all look the same. Doors built into brick buildings, broken and lamps and lumps of trash piled against them. A woman cradles her baby in a corner, tears streaking her face. Clove doesn't do anything, there is no room for sympathy here. Every one suffers alone, their pain is unique and intricate.

There, it's the one with the blue frame. She presses the buzzer.

Waits.

"oh, well hello, fancy seeing you here" The guy in the door purrs. "Why don't you come in?"

Clove just nods stiffly and walks by him. The door locks behind her.

/

Cato's running down the street like a madman. He has no idea what exactly he's running from, but he knows he has to get away from it. Another problem: he doesn't know where it is. He doesn't know if he's running from it or towards it. He's scared out of his fucking mind, scared like he's never been before. He frantically scans the faces of the people around him, looking for help, knowing he'll find none.

Wait...

what..._ on my fucking god.._

the faces, they're all his. Everyone he looks at. The guy walking out of the store, the woman with her kids. They're all him. Their hair and bodies belong to them, but it'd his eyes staring at the phone or watching the people or reading the sign. Petrified, he reaches for his own face. His fingers running over his eyes, his mouth. But it's melting. He can feel his flesh pool between his fingers like wax. He can feel it dripping down his skin.

_no no no no oh shit no_

He desperately tires to hold it in place. He feels a lump where his nose should be and he molds the flesh into shape, only to have it resume it's amorphous state. His vision is obscured with spots like an old movie as he feels his own eyes begin to melt.

He turns frantically to a woman. "Please!"

She turns to face him and his eyes stare back at him. His lips part in surprise.

"my face..., please, ya-ya gotta help me!" Tears cascade down his cheeks and his chest heaves.

"what..? are you ok?" she tries wearily

"Please just fuckin' help me fix it!" he shrieks. The woman backs away into the crowd

So he's running again, shoving people aside, avoiding their faces. He hears protests and threats and when he runs into the street he almost gets hit by a car but he doesn't care. He has to get out of here. He has to get out of here now.

He has no idea how long he runs for before he collapses. He tries to get up but he can barely breathe. His clothes are soaked through with sweat and his head is churning. He heaves and vomits onto the side walk, receiving a few disgusted stares from the passerby. The degree to which people can not care is astonishing.

It takes him a minute, but he's able to drag himself into an alley where he curls between two dumpsters.

And then he passes out.

/

**A/N: hey I hope you guys liked it. I really hope I'm doing OK with portraying the effects of the drugs, as well as their own insanity. There's a really awesome movie called Requiem for a Dream that helped me understand it. It's an amazing story and the filming in itself is a work of art. It's chilling and absolutely beautiful. That being said, it's rated NC17, (but that didn't stop me) so just be careful. But you should really check it out. xx **


	9. Chapter 9

She's revived once again as the needle plunges into the pallid flesh of her arm, but she doesn't feel any better. Just different. She feels lighter, fluid. Flimsy. It's sort of strange and detached.

did the side of that building just ripple?

whatever. It's too hot out, she has to get back. Damn, it's really hot. She can see the heat curling in the air and distorting her vision. She's sweating now.

_it's too fucking hot..._

There. Was that... fire? She does a double take, swears she saw flames. But there's nothing there. She shakes her head, the heat's clearly getting to her. She quickens her pace, stumbling over the cracks and trash.

And then she has to stop, because she panting and sweaty. She feels something strange, but can't quite place it. Something is most defiantly not right. She sits on the curb, head in her arms.

Then, she gets it. She can feel can feel it passing through her body. Seconds, hours, years, all at the same time. The seconds are light, the years are blunt and can feel them pounding in her head, can feel the space they take up. _the pain... the fuckin pain...please... oh my god the pain..._

She rubs her temples, breathing shakily. She glances up but it's way to bright, which triggers more pain. She can feel the time festering in her mind, taking up too much space... still growing... seconds, years...

Until her head feels like it's going to shatter. This is not a head ache. This is a full fledged migraine.

She's literally lost in time. She has no idea where she is, the years seem like seconds and the seconds could be years. It's eternity and infinity, it's nothing and everything-

_here is your forever_

She can feel herself running. Running, running. The excruciating pain in her head is distorting her vision but she can see enough to not get hit by a car. She plows over people, soaked in sweat and tears. It feels like there's some sort of siege in her skull; the pounding is like she's being beaten from the inside. _cato cato cato..._

Wait, what? Why cato? She didn't have time to contemplate this, but if she did it would maybe be that he's there for her. He's the only thing that's constant in her life and he's kinda just like her. They're homicidal druggie freaks, but at least they have each other, They stick together.

She scans the streets, desperate for something, anything. "cato!" "cato!" she's shrieking, because her dignity, along with everything else flew out the window long ago. She's sick and pathetic. She knows. Sick and pathetic. But she doesn't really have anything to loose.

/

she finds him eventually, sprawled in an alley. A look of faint recognition crosses his features, and it takes him a minute to process he whole seen.

Clove. Standing in front of him. Dripping, sobbing hysterically. High out of her mind.

He's pretty out of it himself, but he's descending his high. He lazily extends an arm to her, and she falls into him. He wraps his arms around her, her face in the crook of his neck. He still hasn't fully registered the situation, so he just stares at the bricks. Watches the rats, the people. Sometimes he can't tell the difference.

They could die, are already dead. Right here. Right now. It happens all the time around here. You can't tell who's dead and who's still hanging on. But people do die silently and alone. Over doses, std's. They get sick from eating out of the trash all the time, or killed in gang showdowns. No flowers. No weeping parents and friends. No stone to remind people. Just the enormous, looming skyscrapers. A mass grave hidden in plain site.

/

They don't die. One couldn't necessarily refer to them as alive, but they are not dead. They've been sitting against the wall for two days, unable to sleep, unable to move.

"Hey clove" his voice is raspy

"c-Cato" she whispers

"c'mon, we're gonna get outta here" But he doesn't move. Can't move

oh, right.

He extracts his spoon and syringe and little plastic baggie. Cooks his salvation, injects it. Smirks as it reaches his brain, his legs, his heart. He tries to stand again, and is successful. He reaches into clove's pocket and extracts the syrup. Figures it'll tone down some of the less desirable effects.

Then He hauls clove to her feet, does her fix for her, helps her inject it. She reanimates intermediately. She finds she can walk. They don't get the stunning, euphoric high they did the first few weeks. Now they just need it to feel normal. To walk, to think, to breathe.

/

They make it to bus station relatively easily. They've got tons of energy. They don't even sleep anymore.

Clove removes 300 dollars from her pants and with in a few minutes they've got tickets half way across the country. They've got time; the bus doesn't arrive until 2am, it's around 5:30. They use the remaining money to restock on snacks. The guy who deals it is smart, he puts it in a chips bag.

/

They sit in the back of the bus, despite the bathrooms. There are about ten other passengers. At one pint, clove thinks she hears two of them fucking but it's pitch black so she can't tell for sure. Her head in Cato's lap, she cries softly... jesus why is she crying so much? Cato stares out the window, watching cornfield after cornfield unravel before them. He attempts to devise some sort of plan, anything to give them a little shred of the future. But he can see their whole lives, laid out before them. They never had a chance to begin with.

So they could live spontaneously, fuck it all. They could do anything.

But he can see it now. Clove'll end up working the streets or going totally insane and he'll cook or deal and try in vain to hold her together. If their life was a romance novel they would be saved by each others love and get help and get clean.

But it's not. They're too fucked up to love, to fucked up to get clean. Cato doesn't believe in religion but he can clearly see that hell is entirely real. Hell is nothing more than the darkest recesses of the human mind. The door that you enter out of curiosity or just to get away but then it locks behind you. To be trapped inside yourself. No one can break you out of your own mind.

_our lives would make an awful movie_

/

They make a stop for food and bathrooms (since no one dared use the one on the bus) at around 8 am. Clove uses the bathroom and Cato gets a cheeseburger even though he's not hungry. He gets some fries and clove actually eats them, in a rather robotic manner. Cato wonders if she even knows what she's doing, or if it's instinct because she's starving.

either way, she throws them up later.

/

They spend the rest of the day on the bus. Bored out of their minds and later high out of their minds. The people on the bus keep to themselves. Clove draws little hands across the back of the seat in front of them. In the middle she draws a guy with no skin and a clock where his heart should be.

And it's not half bad either. It makes Cato shiver, because he knows exactly what she means.

At around midnight they stop at a motel and the driver tells them they'll be arriving tomorrow at around 2 and to be on the bus by seven. The passengers trickle out of the bus at a frustratingly slow rate. The whole bus is like one festering apparatus of depression. Fantastic.

They get their key and make their way to their room, where clove locks herself in the bathroom and takes an annoyingly long shower. After about half an hour, thoughts of the last time they were in a motel revisit cato and he runs and pounds on the bathroom door

"what?" she's been crying.

"Hurry the fuck up would ya?" _she's alive._

She emerges twenty minutes later looking somewhat healthier than before. Somewhat. She dries off and flips through the channels, settling on a horror movie she identifies as her favorite. She watches for a few minutes but it makes her kinda nostalgic so she just settles on the nature channel, watches komodo dragons cannibalize each other.

Cato emerges from the bathroom, turns off the lights, and climbs in next to her.

"Well, isn't this romantic?" he sneers, watching the giant lizards tear each other apart. Clove just smirks and rests her head oh his shoulder. They're just like us, clove thinks. They'll protect each other, ward off the hunters, the stupid tourists. They'll share food, bask together. But they'll kill each other in a heartbeat.

Eventually the program ends, but they know that sleep is out of the question. Haven't slept for six days. Cato decides they're not just gonna lie there. Before she can react, he rolls on top of her, pins her hands above her head. She smirks and bites his lip, breaking the soft flesh and drawing blood. His hands find her neck and he grips it, not hard enough to choke her, but enough to cause some discomfort. His other hand traces the groves of her ribs, he spine, her pelvis. She rakes her nails down his side, his arms, across his chest.

She's the most beautiful macabre portrait in the world.

And he fucks her so hard they're both dizzy and the world is spinning a million miles a minute. Clove's skin is adorned in bruises; Cato's blood runs drown his skin as it seeps out of scratches. Clove dips her finger in one and uses his blood to draw on her chest, right above where he heart should be. It's smeared and messy but he can tell what it is.

It's a clock.

**A/N: hey guys so by this point I'm not even sure where I'm going with this and I'm still figuring out exactly how their relationship works . Sorry if this chap was a little boring, nothing really happens. I guess it kind reflects their live though... so yeah. I'll figure something out, though :P**

**xx ~R&R~**


	10. Chapter 10

The bus arrives two hours behind schedule and clove swears she could murder every single person on it, just out of pure boredom. Which isn't much of a stretch for her.

The bus pulls into the station and everybody gets out and they leave the station. And suddenly they're in the middle of a huge city. And they have no fucking idea what to do. The freedom is crippling. Clove is wearing a hospital gown and black jeans. Her hair is down to her waist and tangled and her eye makeup is thick and smeared because her hands never stop shaking now a days. Cato's hair is almost to his shoulders and his skin is pale and bruised, way to skinny for six feet.

_We woke up on the wrong side of life_

They make their way to the projects, there's always a place there for them, where they can slip through the cracks without anyone noticing or caring.

\\\

Evening is ascending when they find a partially demolished building. Clove took her last fix that morning and she feels like she's gonna die. Like she's contracted every illness from the stomach flu to the black death. Cato doesn't feel much better.

They hole up in the corner and clove strips, not caring that one of the walls is nonexistent and exposes them to the street. It's not like anyone uses it anyways. Their supply is running fatally low, and they could probably get two small hits out of it. But a small hit just isn't enough anymore.

"it'll be fine, we'll get more tomorrow, please Cato, just gimme some-" she pleads desperately

"do you see how much is left? that is not fine. that's nothin-'"

"c'mon cato-"

he's loosing it, loosing it, lost it.

"and it's all your fault, you fucking whore! if you made more money we coulda got more, if you were any good-"

"and what were you doin'?! lying around and drinking while I was fuckin those bastards so-"

and his fist connects with her face and he's screaming at her to shut up, just shut the fuck up. She's clawing at him but she's so weak it's futile. Defending her self would result in more injuries than just lying there and taking it. Normally, clove isn't one to just lie there and take it, but doesn't really have any choice.

She's on the ground and he's kicking her in the stomach, the ribs. _she's so easy to break. To fuckin fragile.._

Then he's screaming about how she's weak and pathetic and she's killing herself like this and he has to stand and watch her do it and he fuckin hates it so much...

\\\

Finally he's exhausted himself sinks to the ground. His skin is slick he's panting. He looks at her like he just noticed how much damage he inflicted

"aw shit clove..." black eye, fat lip, broken wrist. The vintage pale of her stomach is no longer visible under the black and purple blotches. She leans over and vomits blood.

She hates herself when she does it but she rests her head in cato's lap. She hates him, hates herself even more. But he's the only thing she has. It's ironic, because he actually keeps her alive, keeps whatever it is in her mind that keeps telling her to kill herself at bay. She doesn't know if that's good or bad, because half the time she feels like dying, but whatever. They don't really want each other, but they know they need each other. They've killed together and stolen together and tripped together, and it's formed this twisted bond that neither knows how to navigate and is hopeless in escaping.

Clove knows they're gonna be end of each other. It's painfully obvious.

/

It takes Them a week to build the lab. They buy the parts with clove's money or find them in the dumpsters. They get the recipe from one of one of clove's customers combined with the research they did at the public library. The actual supplies were insanely easy to acquire. The drug industry was flourishing.

Sudafed. Battery juice. Heat up. cool down. pour. mix. Heat.

they produce their first gram. It's too weak.

Clove laces the next one with syrup. It takes too much of the edge off.

the one after that is way to strong and cato over doses. she gives him coffee and ginger-ale and he can't feel his face for a day.

It takes them a few more attempts before they synthesize a few decent grams. They mix it with some baking soda and figure that when they make enough money they can start cooking pure.

they get savvy, too. Stronger stuff for the condemned, they're so desperate they'll pay anything for their next fix. Just enough to get hooked for the rich kids who wanna look cool or piss off their parents. They're tourists in this area, stupid and vulnerable, lacking street smarts as a result of their sheltered existence. They are easily exploited.

things are really going ok. Sometimes they even dare to hope. Not very often though

"we're gonna get a place, with a bed and a fridge n' shit..."

"yeah, and a shower. It could be on like a lake or something. I gotta get outta here."

"we will, clove. We will" _will we clove, will we ever? can we?_

_\\\_

It's late at night and clove's made an exceptional profit. Normally, she would head back now, but there's something she's been meaning to do. She slinks between the buildings with the peeling paint and the smoky windows. She knows it's probably smarter to go by the main street, but this way is more direct. There's a certain thing about the city; if you hold yourself a certain way, people will stay the fuck away from you, no matter how rough the place is. Show the slightest bit of fear, let your elaborate bullshit facade slip and leak a glimpse of pain, and you're dead.

She's got it down to a science.

/

Clove unlatches the fence and descends the rather precarious spiral stair case with ease. She's a regular. The smell of some sort of bizarre ethnic food hangs in the humidity and she can feel the music pulsing in her throat. Lanterns and glow sticks dangle from the fire escape and from clothes lines, giving the place a psychedelic aura. "Lair of the dayglow freaks" is spray painted across one of the wall to her right.

Clove reached the bottom of the stair case and continued along the narrow alley, the walls plastered with murals and adds for palm readings. She reached the end and sprints down the last flight of stairs, raps on the door. It's much cooler down here, below city level. It's much cooler down here. The moon light mixed with that cast by the lanterns makes it impossible to determine the original color of anything. Rather, everything had a shade of every color

"well, if it isn't hell's fuck doll" the man in the door way gestures for Clove to enter. He's gangly and lean with half his body tattooed with song lyrics.

"bitch please, this is satan you're lookin' at" She steps into the storage room and sprawls on the couch, removing her heals

the guy grins and gives a low whistle, running his fingers though his hair. "then I sure hope I end up in hell"

"that may occur sooner than than you think" She smirks and her eyes are coated with blue light. He retrieves to sodas from the mini fridge and hands one to her.

"so, what brings you to the lair at 2:06 am?" he inquires, sitting down next to her

"I wanna buy three tabs and some paint" like she's a five year old ordering ice cream.

"well I'm outta tabs until 'bout middle a next week, I could give ya some x, though...?"

" huh, never done that shit"

"oh, then you're gonna love it...better than sex"

\\\

Clove leaves so high she's afraid she'll float into space and die or whatever. The colored lights dance and distort her perception of reality. She can feel the music running though her body; he heart is the tempo. She's part of the music. She is the music. Lugging a cart of spray paint up a steep spiral stair case, she swears she's the happiest person in the world.

/

The court yard is concealed by looming brick buildings, making it ideal for what she has in mind. She puts the mask (not like it's gonna matter if she gets any more chemicals in her system, but whatever), selects a few bottles in varying shades of blue and purple, and hoists herself onto the nearest fire escape.

She paints what she drew on the bus. The guy with a clock for a heart. She paints buildings with hands on them, under a sky protruding faces. She paints people so that they're hanging from the window ledges.

When she finally finishes, her mural is at least as tall as she is and a few times wider. Her eyes are bleary and she's a little dizzy. When she jumps off the fire escape and picks up her crate, she can barely make it out in the darkest shades of the morning. She turns to go, leaving the contents of her mind on the sun roasted bricks.

**A/N: sooo...yeah. another rather stagnant chapter. Oh well. Maybe it's like their lives where they're trapped in their lives or whatever... or just me unable to think of anything :p R&R xx**


	11. Chapter 11

"C'mon Clove-"

"I said no. shut up already."

"Clove, we don't even do it that much anymore. the fuck is your problem anyway?"

"Cato, if you don't quit, I will fuck you up so bad-"

"that's not much of an incentive"

"just let me alone, kay? I'm tired."

"Jesus fuckin christ clove you're always tired." he runs his hand through his hair, pissed off.

she rolls over, exasperated and tiered. Just really tired. It's true, though, they barely ever fuck any more. Not since clove started hanging around the club. She'd return late, like 2 am, and collapse on the mattress cato found on a street corner. Sex was mundane. It There was no pain, no pleasure, nothing. Not only that, it kinda disgusted her. She spent her nights fucking drunk guys who smelled like vomit and shit. It's kinda a turn off.

But Cato doesn't really care. He never really cares.

"we can do this the easy way or the hard way, kid" he climbs on top of her and gathers her wrists on one hand, pinning them above her. The other hand makes it's way up her shirt.

"get offa me, I swear to god-" she tries to kick him, but he just flattens himself on top of her, rendering her immobile.

"hard way it is, then" he smirks, eyes refracting the street lamps.

_pathetic pathetic pathetic pathetic-_

"Cato. please don't" she tires not to sound desperate. She fails miserably.

_pathetic pathetic pathetic-_

"just don't do it-" that's when he forces his mouth over hers, scraping his teeth across her skin until she opens her mouth. The hand that previously occupied her ribs is now at her throat. Cato doesn't stop to rip off the hospital gown she sleeps in, moving her hands to her sides where he holds them down with his feet as he straddles her. Then he has her hands again and he's spreading her legs with his then he's fucking her hard, really really hard-

he licks the tears she tired so hard to suppress off her face. When he's finally done, he wraps his arms around her in a way that ensures she won't escape. He knows she won't, even if she could. She's too broken. She doesn't work right. Clove would never leave him because it would mean that she would have to face whatever the fuck is going on in her head.

{{{

Clove is in a lot of pain. It's been like a week but it still feels like it was last night. Way more pain than this particular activity has even yielded, except maybe for that first time...

"drink your tea, kiddo"

"yeah, I am, thanks."

Once again, she finds herself in the heart and soul of the little freak show where she buys her paint and some of her drugs.

The storage room is smells like must and incense and the couch creaks when she breathes. She loves it here.

"So, you did that thing a few blocks over right?"

"yeah"

"far out kiddo, that shit was pretty far out"

"thanks. Hey, can I ask you a favor?"

"depends on the favor" he raises an eye brow, the dragon that;s tattooed above distorted by his wrinkles. She scrutinizes his face, trying to determine his response

"Can I borrow your gun?"

He stares at her for a minute, analyzing her motives. weighing her soul.

"just be careful. don't do anything unnecessary."

"thanks. I'll try to have it back by tomorrow." She gets up, shudders as a sharp pain flares within her.

"hey, you ok?"

"yeah, fine" she says vacantly

"hey, you sure?"

"of what?"

"of whatever you're gonna do. I'm not gonna ask questions, I just want ya to think this through's all"

pause. It was a decent question, hadn't. But she's not going to. Can't allow herself to, or else the pain and fury might subside into fear and second thoughts

_don't think about it. don't back down, you pathetic bitch. just it. he needs it, wants it. He hates you. Thinks you're fat, ugly. fat-_"Yeah I'm sure"

he's skeptical. "be careful"

"yeah ok mom" she deadpans "but really, thanks again" She makes for the door

"Wait, where ya going? no one leaves this place sober, ya know" He digs around in some haphazard pile, extracting a cheap hookah

She turns around, smirks "well, if you insist..."

}}}

She leaves the place floating a mile off the face of the earth. This place is funny, no one knows what it actually looks like because they're always high or tripping or whatever. It's uniquely tailored to each of their realities, however they perceive it.

There's one thing that's been nagging her mind, though she doesn't remember it until she reaches the stair case. _how the fuck did he get that couch down there?_

She makes a quick stop at the drug store before retuning to their temporary establishment.

{{{

It takes Cato a few seconds to process what's in front of him. He's kinda slow that way.

The first thing he sees is clove. She simultaneously looks both beautiful and like shit in that way that only she can.

Not long after that, he notices the gun. Aimed at him. The manic concentration in her eyes as she holds his gaze, daring him to look away.

But she's only holding the gun in one hand. In the other hand, she holds a pregnancy test. He has to squint to make out the little symbol that means positive. He blinks. Still positive.

"hello Cato"

"C-Clove...what-" shit.

"I'm done, Cato. and clearly, that's where you're heading as well. In a more literal sense, of course"

" You need me"

"need you to what? beat me? fuck me? put this fuckin parasite in me?!" He gaze never falters. He can feel her coming undone.

Oh.

"Y- You're not going to do this. you can't" he's reeling for something, anything

"I am. and I can. I killed before, what's the difference?"

He needs to regain the upper hand. But it's so hard to manipulate her, because she just doesn't care about anything. Doesn't care about herself.

Then another thought. He doesn't really care about anything either. If he dies, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. It just goes on

He can feel his pulse hammering under skin, the tempo to a blaring requiem. Maybe this is it.

"Alright then. go ahead. You have nothing to loose, everything to gain." He inhales shakily "pull the trigger, Clove. I'm just another body, Clove. you can do it, I know you." He smirks at the pure thrill of it all. He's getting high off his own adrenaline rush

"go on, babe. It'll only take a second. you're so close"

_pull the trigger pull the trigger pull the trigger pull the trigger be free be free-_

The moment festers in a silent crescendo. It get's hotter, the city gets louder until all there is a persistent shriek ringing through the air. Seconds are years and years are eternity.

She's shaking so hard. The pregnancy test drops as her other hand reinforces her grip on the gun

_DOITDOITDOITDOITDOITDOIT-_

She turns the gun in her hands. _I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU__  
_

Stares into the barrel

_PATHETIC PATHETIC PATHETIC YOU'RE NOTHING JUST PATHETIC JUST DIE ALREADY DIE AND WE'LL LEAVE YOU ALONE CLOVE JUST DIE WE HATE YOU WHO ARE YOU WHO ARE YOU WHERE ARE WE WHAT IS THIS JUST END IT END IT-_

She runs her finger over the groove of the trigger

And that's when Cato jumps. Tackles her, knocking the gun out of her hands.

}}}

She spends the next day and a half so heavily sedated she can't talk.

The only time he leaves her is to get a coat hanger and some rubbing alcohol. He cleans unravels the hanger and dips it in the alcohol. Then he spreads her legs and inserts one end. She whimpers but otherwise doesn't seem to notice.

**A/N: soo R&R! xx**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:** **this probably should have been at the beginning but I didn't really consider it until I got a particular review. This is a disturbing story, with disturbing content. It has rape, drug use, coat hanger abortions, mental illness, prostitution and murder. I know it's dark but this stuff happens guys. This is a story about cato and clove but it's not just their story. this is the story of so many lost people. this stuff happens all the time, guys, right in front of us. It's life. So I'm sorry if my story upsets you or whatever but I'm just telling it how it is. **

When it exploded, Clove was rubbing her hips against some poor sexually suppressed man to fast paced music and Cato was meeting a client behind the local elementary school.

Now she's heading down the street, and she can see that her brick and concrete world is bathed in red and blue and sirens are severing that pressing silence. She can hear screams and people shouting and crying and dying.

another police car swerves around the corner, knowing over a trash can and scattering a colony of rats.

She doesn't have to turn the corner to know what happened. But she does anyways. And wishes she hadn't, transfixed by the scene before her. People heavy with fear and sleep are being evacuated as flames lick the side of building, searching for something to devour across the bricks. People in white suits are plastering caution tape everywhere and spraying chemicals and water. A small, disfigured body is being conveyed to the closest ambulance, skin dripping off the hand. A woman runs behind it, tears streaking her face and catching the streetlight as she shrieks.

Clove turns and runs, like she does from every problem in her life.

{{{

She runs into cato a little while later. She stops as she identifies him and he hugs her, hard. She can't decide if she loves him or hates him or if she wants to fuck him or kill him or both, so she just laces her arms around his neck and presses her face into his hoodie.

"we're leaving" he breathes into her hair

"where-where we gonna go?" she's having trouble processing her words, processing everything.

"it doesn't really matter" _It was us it was all us_

He takes her hand and they walk down the street. They just walk away. Two kids bathed in neon and streetlight, pushing each other over the edge of sanity.

They reach the train station and buy the only tickets for the only bus that runs at this hour. They don't know where it's going, and they couldn't really care less. The bus smells like stale people.

}}}

after fifteen sleepless hours, they arrive at a bus terminal in the middle of a sprawling city. Hand in hand the walk through it, the noise and insanity of it all orgasmic.

"we're not staying in some shit hole again." she states, even though she has no idea where else they could stay. Cato just smirks and squeezes her hand. Not a cute little love squeeze. a momentarily cut off your circulation squeeze.

"don't worry." He loops his arm around her shoulders. She just wonders when it was that he all of a sudden got all touchy. In a socially acceptable way, that is

"Have I ever told you that you're beautiful?" He asks her, staring at her in a way that terrified her, made her feel like he had her by the throat and she would die if she broke eye contact.

"uh, no..."

"you are. and I mean it Clove. I'm serious" She can tell that there's a chance that he actually might be. All of a sudden he looks so lost and Clove can see the little Cato that she never knew but is clearly not quite dead yet. The Cato before shit happened.

"Hey, c'mon" he tugs her hand

"where to?"

"no idea, but we have ta get there, do you trust me?"

"I don't really care anymore." _escape at any cost. _Cato found her when she was lost in her own world. Cato tired to fix her, only to repeatedly break her after. He stayed with her, saved her life for her when she threw it away. She doesn't know if her life has gotten better or worse since Cato found her. Cato had taken her above heaven and below hell. He fucked her and it was beautiful and painful but she loved it, then he did it again and it was terrifying and made her is both more alive and more dead than she was before.

They reach a partially demolished building. They always end up in the projects. always.

They pick their way through the rubble, through the front door, despite the fact that they could have walked right around it.

Up ten flights of stairs.

The building is beautiful, in an eerie way. It's so dead silent it's like sound can't even penetrate the corroded walls.

As she follows Cato, she gets a sense of finality, like their fate is being sealed behind them.

When they reach the top, the city is purple in the dusk and it's so high up that you can't see the suffering if you don't look to hard. But the pain still rises with the heat.

Some people are scared of death. Clove feels as though she's leaving an old house or saying goodbye to a close friend (not that she knows what that's like). It's something that happens, then it's over. She's not even sure if her life is real in the first place, there are no strings that bind her to reality. She's never changed anyone's life, never loved anything. Well, she's pretty sure she impacted Cato to some degree, but that doesn't count. She just feels relived. Really, really relived.

They had all the freedom in the world, so how did they end up like this? she doesn't know if it's just who they are or if it's the fact that they had so much freedom in the first place. unlimited freedom corrupts the mind, as it gives it unlimited potential. We're as much evil as we are good, she figures. We have the potential for both. Who we are determines which potential we'll seek. Or maybe it's just random. Whatever.

They walk to the edge, hand in hand. They've barely dented eternity.

The world will go on like nothing ever happened. Perhaps they're grace the back pages of the paper for a few days, if someone around here cares enough to report them. People die all the time around here. Perhaps they'll end up as another statistic that'll appear on the whiteboard of some school in front of bored students who are waiting impatiently for their lives to begin.

"Clove" she looks into Cato's eyes, how serine he looks right here, hundreds of feet above the city. His fingers graze her face, her sunken eyes, her slightly upturned nose, her chapped lips. They comb through her dark hair, he pulls them out when they become entangled in a knot and re laces them with her hand.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't love you" she can barely hear him as his voice is stolen by the wind.

She doesn't feel her feet leave the surface, but she's plunging violently though forever, the wind pounding in her ears a requiem.

Clove doesn't know if they've hit the surface yet or not.

_where is my forever?_

**A/N: well. I had to end that, it just felt like it was dragging on. Honestly, I was nursing something that was long dead. I considered sending them to rehab or something, but at least for me, they whole cato/clove thing is that they have no redemption, so that would destroy the point. Thank you all for the support, and don't worry, I'll be posting more soon.**

**soo...Love it? Hate it? meh? wanna kill me? wanna worship me (yeah, right)? R&R bitches! xoxo, crispy**


End file.
